Cellular Phones/Electricity in General

[spartichris 11]

Ok, so here is my pitch for realistic Dayz cell phones.

 

• Premise

 

Player does not spawn with a phone.

Phones are fairly rare but not uncommon throughout Chernarus.

I have done my research and cellular towers can easily run for decades without human maintenance.

As for the issue of electricity; a cellular tower does not take very much power. Usually 20w its standard for a tower operating without any usage. 60 or less people is not considered "in use".

There is a functional hydroelectric dam near Electrovodsk.

I feel that the fact that the only worthwhile means of communications in Dayz (sidechat/external-program) are very obtrusive and immersion-less concepts.

 

• Mechanics

 

Each player is given a unique randomly generated number at spawn by the server regardless of whether they have a phone. The number will be view-able in the inventory diary/contact list. 

Batteries; batteries are crucial and rare. Your cellphone has limited battery. However the battery may be charged given the player is near a generator (charge battery animation). Generators are vital. In the post-apocalyptic world electricity still exist whether you like it or not and needs to be incorporated in the game. Generators also power batteries to your GPS. You can also send text messages and pictures through the cell-phone. Video cameras (not cell phone) would be great too. Imagine sitting up on a hill and recording a murder and leaving the tape for someone to find to put into their camera and watch. Also audio tape recorders (AA-bateries) could be used in creative ways as well.

Cell phones also have a ring or vibrate function which can be altered via the scroll wheel or menu/right-click.

Server Admins could also pre-load all phones with admin numbers so they may be reached if need be. (Just a thought)

You could also block specific numbers.

Zombies/players can hear a cellphone ring. 

You can obtain two cellphones and drop one using your other cell to call that one effectively creating a baiting technique or a diversion.

You could also do this to find your tent if you cant remember where it is.

GPS tracking devices would also be interesting as hell.

You could use them to keep track of players in your squad for coordinated attacks.

Or you could use them to track an enemy vehicle!

 

• Discussion

 

All of this is completely possible from a technical standpoint with the Arma engine. I could only find one other thread about this and it wasn't that great.

I want a discussion and not just "great idea" or "gay". Electricity is just a touchy and seldom talked about feature that could be incorporated in Dayz. 

While the possibility at first may seem limited I would ask of you to just think of the implications of possessing a cellphone or camcorder etc. in Dayz would be.

I personally would love to see this done. 

[leviski 2152]

Id Rather see the ability to get lights on at night if you put fuel in a generator.

Edited September 8, 2013 by leviski

[Statik (DayZ) 2695]

It's a cool idea, but I think 3rd party programs (Teamspeak, Mumble, Skype, etc) will easily take over.

[Karmaterror 982]

Nice idea, would like to see a functioning dam, jus the 1 relic to the old ways that still runs :D.

 

The phone would be awesome, scype, ts ect would be used a lot but for diversions and stuff would be great. GPS does rly need some more function aswell, linking them by 2 playes with one meeting up would be awesome, then you could get either a map marker only or the arma 2 green squad member square thing depending on difficulty.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

Instead of having each player having a number, how about having each phone that spawns get a random number, and the only way to get other numbers would be to either find a phone and add its' number to the contacts or get a player to tell you.

[Cormyr 39]

Instead of having each player having a number, how about having each phone that spawns get a random number, and the only way to get other numbers would be to either find a phone and add its' number to the contacts or get a player to tell you.

 

That would be interesting actually haha. Find two phones, text one the ph# of the other and leave it somewhere.. and wait to see who picks it up. You could also call from one phone to the other, leave one somewhere (put the hidden one on speaker hehe) and hide. Players get near the phone you hid and start talking into the one you still have.. would freak some people out lol. Could also distract zombies this way.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Cell towers kinda like electricity and a well maintained wired network to support them. Just saying.

[Dr-Shade 83]

Cell towers kinda like electricity and a well maintained wired network to support them. Just saying.

 

 

 

  Fair point on that... 

 

 

 The one thing communication-wise, that everybody seems to forget when it comes to post-apocalyptic times, is Satellite Phones...

 

 

 The Satellites are already up there, complete with access-permissions pre-loaded ( the service providers system merely uploads "updates" to those permissions as needed, so if you found an active one, there would be no service provider to tell the Satellite to ignore you ) and require for the most part, little to no maintenance...

 

  Although you would over time lose Satellites to faults/ Space debris/ rubbish and inevitably old-age, the system in itself should be good for quite awhile....

 

 And Given that most Satellite phones are sold with/ are compatible with Car chargers, and we have cars/ vehicles... That solves the issue of charging the Terrestrial end of it...

 

Also, as far as the Games ( mod and standalone ) go, if we can find working GPS systems, then Sat Phones are just as plausible, considering a GPS requires 3 Satellites to bounce signals off, not just the one ( for short-med distance ) calls on a Sat Phone....  

[Chaingunfighter 917]

That would be interesting actually haha. Find two phones, text one the ph# of the other and leave it somewhere.. and wait to see who picks it up. You could also call from one phone to the other, leave one somewhere (put the hidden one on speaker hehe) and hide. Players get near the phone you hid and start talking into the one you still have.. would freak some people out lol. Could also distract zombies this way.

 

Yeah, but I mainly said that because it would be kind of weird that the two phones you found would happen to have the same number if you hadn't gotten them set up at a cellular network provider (Which probably isn't possible in a post-apocalyptic region)

[AP_Norris 1018]

I would like to start a Chernarus Justice squad, their would be a forensic analysis of each crime scene taking pictures sending texts around and rounding up a posse to Judge, Jury, Execution the guilty suspect.

We would operate out of the police station and have executions off the green mountain radio tower.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

  Fair point on that... 

 

 

 The one thing communication-wise, that everybody seems to forget when it comes to post-apocalyptic times, is Satellite Phones...

 

 

 The Satellites are already up there, complete with access-permissions pre-loaded ( the service providers system merely uploads "updates" to those permissions as needed, so if you found an active one, there would be no service provider to tell the Satellite to ignore you ) and require for the most part, little to no maintenance...

 

  Although you would over time lose Satellites to faults/ Space debris/ rubbish and inevitably old-age, the system in itself should be good for quite awhile....

 

 And Given that most Satellite phones are sold with/ are compatible with Car chargers, and we have cars/ vehicles... That solves the issue of charging the Terrestrial end of it...

 

Also, as far as the Games ( mod and standalone ) go, if we can find working GPS systems, then Sat Phones are just as plausible, considering a GPS requires 3 Satellites to bounce signals off, not just the one ( for short-med distance ) calls on a Sat Phone....  

GPS satellites or more of an issue tho because in order to remain accurate they need drift correction, which i believe is done from earth (there is no space object that never drift from it's course, debris and solar winds make sure of that) but i suppose on the short term, whatever value you get on your gps will be the same your buddy frank will get next week on his gps at the same spot. But since gps satellites where moved from the geostationary orbit, the math involved is more complex, and positional errors harder to fix if one or more of the satellites get out of allignment.

[fluxley 2228]

I'm not convinced that cell phone networks would work for long without regular maintenance, they don't employ thousands of engineers in every city just for a laugh.

 

The same goes for power stations, they wouldn't just keep running with no human input and once they do shutdown the average joe washed up on the beach wouldn't be able to get passed the security systems or have a clue where to start to get the thing running again.

 

All this has been discussed to death loads of times which is why they decided to go with radios instead, far more plausible.

 

Mobile phones could still be included, but the only use for them would be for taking videos, photographs and maybe even timing devices for traps/distraction.

[enforcer1975 1111]

 

Ok, so here is my pitch for realistic Dayz cell phones.

 

 

Hit...homerun...

 

 

And how am i supposed to know the number of a random player or do you just want to dial random numbers of call everyone in the adressbook...just in case the provider station is still working...

[IncognitoNico 71]

I thought they were adding radios